298 
VOYAGE TO THE 
CHAP. Catherine, and the head of a halberd, which had been converted into a 
knife ; both of which were evidence of the communication that must 
Sept, exist between their tribe and those of the Asiatic coasts opposite. 
We returned on board with a boat full of dried salmon, and the 
next day the party visited the ship. Notwithstanding the friendly 
treatment they had experienced the day before, it required much per- 
suasion to induce them to come upon deck ; and even when some of 
them were prevailed upon to do so, they took the precaution of leaving 
with their comrades in the boat every valuable article they had about 
their persons. They were shown every thing in the ship most likely to 
interest them, hut very few objects engaged them long, and they passed 
by some that were of the greatest interest, to bestow their attention 
upon others which to us were of none, thus showing the necessity 
of fully understanding the nature of any thing before the mind can 
properly appreciate its value. The sail-maker sewing a canvass hag, and 
the chain cable, were two of the objects which most engaged their atten- 
tion ; the former from its being an occupation they had themselves 
often been engaged in ; and the latter as exhibiting to them the result 
of prodigious labour, as they would naturally conclude that our chains 
though so much larger and of so much harder a material than their 
own — were made in the same manner. The industry and ingenuity 
of the Esquimaux are, however, displayed in nothing more than in the 
fabrication of chains, two or three of which we met with cut out of a solid 
piece of ivory. On showing these people the plates of natural history 
in Eees’s Cyclopmdia, they were far more intelligent than might have 
been expected from the difficulty that naturally occurs to uncivilized 
people in divesting their minds of the comparative size of the living 
animal and its picture. But the Esquimaux are very superior in this 
respect to the South Sea Islanders, and immediately recognised every 
animal they were acquainted with that happened to be in the book, and 
supplied me with the following list of them : — 
